VIENNA: Last month’s drone attack on the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant was a “serious compromise of nuclear safety, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday, adding any such attack “is unacceptable, a no-go, taboo.”
The UAE blamed pro-Iran militants in Iraq for the incident, which followed weeks of attacks by Iranian drones and missiles during the Middle East war.
The May 17 attack hit an electricity facility at the plant, risking potentially shutting it down, and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned that “attacks on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes are unacceptable.”
“The strike caused a fire in an electrical generator located outside the inner site perimeter of the NPP (nuclear power plant), prompting the need for emergency generators to provide power,” Grossi told an IAEA board meeting in Vienna.
The meeting was held at the request of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
During a visit to the plant last Tuesday Grossi said the attack could have interrupted the external power supply.
On Friday he hailed the “professionalism and alertness” of the IAEA-trained on-duty team at the site who he said were able to “respond promptly and effectively to the unthinkable: a direct impact caused by a drone with an explosive payload.”
He said the IAEA would closely support the plant to ensure its safety, having during his visit said that the plant had been the victim of a “very carefully targeted operation” by attackers seeking to cause a major incident.
In any case, “the incident was a serious compromise of nuclear safety and undermined several of the IAEA’s seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict,” Grossi said.
‘Perilous’ time
Even if radiation levels at the plant remained normal and no injuries were reported he stressed that such attacks could lead to a high release of radioactivity.
He added he had spoken immediately after the attack to UAE leaders to assure them of the agency’s support and “given the general concerns caused by these developments, I have been in close and frequent touch with leaders throughout the Gulf region” to discuss nuclear safety and security in the region at a “perilous” time.
The Barakah plant, built by a South Korean consortium led by energy supplier Kepco and which came online in 2020, meets up to a quarter of the UAE’s electricity needs.
In a statement on Friday to the IAEA board, Iran said the United States and Israel had carried out “17 waves of attacks against Iranian safeguarded nuclear facilities,” including near its Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Ahead of the board of governors’ meeting, Iran, and its allies China and Russia, held a meeting with Grossi.
The IAEA chief later told a news conference the three countries had asked for the meeting to underline that “it’s very difficult for Iran to comply with its obligations (to the IAEA) in the current circumstances.”
Grossi also said that the IAEA needed to be allowed to verify the amount of enriched uranium Iran has.
Iran’s mission to the IAEA released a statement afterwards saying the meeting “because it’s been a long time and without a clear baseline.”
Without such verification, any agreement over Iran’s nuclear program “might be less... I would say probable.”
